Miner 49er or better known as Manic Miner, is one of the ZX Spectrums more well known games and rightfully so. The game is simple but a true gem in the ZX Spectrum’s library of games. Anyhow, here’s 49 things you may or may not know about the classic game.
- It was orginally released by Bug-Byte software in 1983
- It was developed By a man called Matthew Smith who also made the game ‘Jet Set Willy’
- Manic Miner is the first game in the ‘Miner Willy’ series of games
- It was officially ported to 10 different home computers and video game systems although it was orginally for the ZX Spectrum
- It is also avaialable to play on mobile phones
- It is regarded as a game with high replay value
- The Bug-Byte cheat code was the numerical sequence “6031769” – based on Matthew Smith’s driving licence
- It was the first game on the ZX Spectrum to include in game music
- The music that plays during the title screen is an arrangement of The Blue Danube
- The game was inspired by the Atari 800 game ‘Miner 2049er’
- The game was published by Software Projects later in 1983
- It was also published by Amsoft in 1985
- The game did unfortunately did not have joystick support on the ZX spectrum
- Manic Miner is a platform game
- Manic Miner was placed at number 25 in the “Your Sinclair official top 100” Spectrum games of all time
- There is a fan unofficial ZX81 version of the game
- The game was placed third in “Game of the Year 1983”
- Many unofficial ports, sequels and spin-offs of the game exist
- The game’s protagonist is called ‘Miner Willy’
- The game has an animated title screen that took advantage of the ZX Spectrum allowing background and foreground colours to be exchanged automatically without software attention
- You begin the game with 3 lives
- The in-game music is a take on ‘In the hall of the mountain king’ by Edvard Grieg
- There are 20 levels within the game
- Enemies in the game include ‘Poisonous Pansies, Spiders, Slime and Manic Mining robots’
- The 1997 version of the game has been completed in exactly 10 minutes
- The whole game is set underground, with the objective of the game to make it to the surface
- The player gains an extra life every 10000 points
- In each cavern, there are flashing objects Willy must obtain and take to the exit before his air supply runs out
- Willy can also die by falling from too great of a height
- The colourful graphics were well designed for the ZX spectrum’s graphical limitations.
- It was the winner of a Golden Joystick Award for best arcade style game by Computer and Video Game magazine in the March 1983 edition
- Unofficial ports of the game can be found on the Nintendo 64 and Sony Playstation as well as many more computers and video game consoles
- The games sequels are Jet Set Willy, followed by Jet Set Willy 2
- ‘The Perils of Willy’ is a game released in the style of Manic Miner but for the Vic-20 computer
- The games cheat code was changed to ‘typewriter’ in the Software Projects version of the game
- A homage to the loading screen was featured in the 2005 British sitcom ‘Nathan Barley’
- When you have gathered all the items in one cavern, the exit begins to flash
- Manic Miner is a 48K game
- The game is single player
- Manic Miner can be played online in your interenet browser right now!
- Theres is some differences in the enemies sprites between the bug-byte software and Software Projects version of the game
- The Bug-Byte version of the game has 2 different tape covers
- Each level in the name is known as a cavern and all caverns in the game have their own name and layout
- The iconic first level in the game is called the central cavern
- The final level in the game features the only building in the game which appears to be a farm house with a tractor
- The games orginal price was £5.95
- An unofficial sequel to the game known as Manic Miner 2 does exist however it is more or less an exact clone of the original game
- Manic Miner is less commonly refered to as ‘Miner 49er’
- Manic Miner is regarded as one of the best ZX Spectrum games ever made
Watch RZX Archives playthrough of the game:
Watch the 1997 version of the game be beaten in 10 minutes by ArtinEmil:
The ZX Spectrum Vega is available to order at www.funstockretro.co.uk and you can save an additional 5% on your order by using the discount code ‘NEWS5’
